SAN FRANCISCO — The Smart Tech Foundation is calling on the tech community to solve one of America’s most pervasive and tragic problems — gun violence.

It is posing four $1 million challenges to motivate entrepreneurs to apply their talent and ingenuity towards reducing gun death and injury.

The Smart Tech Foundation is a response to the Sandy Hook shootings. This tragedy shook the nation on Dec. 14, 2012, and yet we have made little-to-no progress to address the problem — 12,000 people have been killed by guns since Sandy Hook, including 573 children and teens.The U.S. saw 23 mass shootings in 2013.

The mission of the Smart Tech Foundation is to hack through all the politics and bureaucracy and inspire progress through entrepreneurial solutions. It was started by Ron Conway, a famed angel investor known for advocating the use of technology to address civic issues, along with serial entrepreneur Jim Pitkow

“Let’s use innovation to bring about gun safety and not rely on Washington,” Conway said at the kickoff event for the firearm safety challenge. “The tech community wasn’t engaged with this issue before, but the Sandy Hook massacre should cause people to act. We are innovators, and we want entrepreneurs to invent ideas about gun safety.”

Conway compared this effort to the invention of the seat belt. He said that Volvo created the three-point safety belt, and that created a market for safety in automobiles. Since then, driving is seven times safer on a per mile basis, and he said a market solution like this could have the same impact on gun safety.

“We believe in the free market and the democratic process,” Pitkow said, who serves as director of Smart Tech. “This is about examining the current realities of gun violence and the systematic market failures in terms of innovation and active capital. This is not about gun control. In no way do our efforts challenge the right to bear arms. We are calling upon brightest minds in world to create opt-in solutions that strengthen the rights of gun bearing citizens and increase the safety of Americans.”

The foundation is accepting applications starting today through March 31, 2014, and candidates at all stages of “technological readiness” can apply, meaning you can have just an idea or a product already in the market. A panel will review the proposals and allocate the funds to the most promising ideas. The goal is to provide structure and focus to these entrepreneurs as well as access to experts, money, tools, and any other resources they might need.

A few companies already developing products to promote gun safety attended the event today as examples of what technology can do.

Armatix built a radio-controlled watch that restricts gun access and use. This “smart system” means the gun can only shoot if it is in range of the watch or if the gun owner releases the safety mechanism by entering a PIN code. If the gun loses contact with the watch, it automatically deactivates.

Everlokt is working on Safe Access Ammunition (SAAMO) technology. It makes ammunition as well as computerized gun handles that limits who can fire the guns. Salus Security Devices built a biometric locking station for guns that recognizes fingerprints, and Sentinel built an “Identilock” mechanism that covers the firearm trigger until a fingerprint unlocks the device.

Sentinel founder Omer Kiyani was shot when he was 16 in a drive-by shooting while he was out with his friends.

“I am a gun owner, I am a parent, and I am a victim,” he said. “I remember seeing the fear in my parents’ faces that day. I never ever want to see a child go through something or have a parent go through the same thing. As a responsible American, I am passionate about solving the gun violence issue — it is not bigger than American ingenuity.”

Ben Tomb is the CEO of Salus Security Devices. When his son was 5, he was playing with his friend next door.

“He went to his friend Bobby’s house to play. Bobby’s older brother, who was 12, went into the father’s bedroom, retrieved his shotgun, and accidentally or intentionally discharged it, fatally wounding Bobby, who died the next day. I know that could have been my son or one of my grandsons.”

Despite all this tragedy, gun control remains a divisive political issue. It can’t make any headway in Congress, and the real threats and dangers too often become mired in partisan bickering. In the mean time, tens of thousands of people are dying.

“We believe through innovation, new products can be introduced in firearm safety to make communities safer and save lives,” said San Francisco police chief Greg Suhr. “Those who say ‘Guns don’t kill people. People kills people’ are mistaken. Guns do kill people. We need better gun control, and to date efforts in D.C. have not been successful, but there is more than one way to skin a cat.”

The first challenge is dedicated to firearm safety. The subsequent challenges are dedicated to big data, community safety, and brain health.

A massacre at a U.S. Navy shipyard in Washington, D.C., left 12 deadMonday. Today, as the nation once again looks for answers following a shooting rampage, some are renewing their calls for gun control.

But that’s not what they’re doing on Fox News. On that network’s morning show Fox & Friends, the hosts pointed to video games as a potential “strong link” leading to mass shootings, and one host called for government oversight of gamers, as first spotted by Rawstory.

Cohost Brian Kilmead argued we shouldn’t focus on gun control because the alleged shooter, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, had a history of drinking, video games, and “a few shooting instances.”

“He’s got a friend that says [Alexis] had an obsession with video games,” Kilmead said. “His friend would come over and [Alexis] would be playing these video games for so long — these shooting video games — that we’d have to give him dinner. We’d feed him while he continues to stay on them.”

This prompted Elisabeth Hasselbeck to ask if some people, with fragile mental states, are more susceptible to a negative reaction from playing violent video games.

“Is there a link between a certain age group of men — 20-to-34 year-old men — that are playing these games and their violent actions. We’ve yet to find out.”

That didn’t stop the show from presenting a list of mass shooters who played video games. The list included Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dyland Klebold, The Dark Knight Rises movie-theater shooter James Holmes, and Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik. Of course, that doesn’t prove causation. I’m sure I could find a list of gamers that tragically end up interning for cable news. Is there a link? We’ve yet to find out.

That lack of evidence didn’t stop Hasselbeck from presenting her solution to the problem as she perceives it. The host suggested something that sounds very similar to a national gun registry but for gamers.

“What about frequency testing? How often has this game been played? And I’m not one to say get in there and monitor everything,” she said. “But if this is indeed a strong link to mass killings, then why aren’t we looking at frequency of purchases per person and how often they’re playing. Maybe they timeout after a certain hour.”

Check out the video below:

]]>1‘Fox & Friends’ host Elisabeth Hasselbeck calls for registry of gamersNational Rifle Association releases free shooting gamehttp://venturebeat.com/2013/01/14/national-rifle-association-releases-free-shooting-game/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/14/national-rifle-association-releases-free-shooting-game/#commentsTue, 15 Jan 2013 03:33:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=604459On the one-month anniversary of the school shooting, the NRA has released its own iPhone and iPad app, "NRA: Practice Range." The iTunes rating system suggests that it's appropriate for children as young as 4-years-old to play.
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That’s ironic because the pro-gun lobby has been highly critical of video games that feature guns and shooting. A week after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., chief executive officer Wayne LaPierre (pictured above) blamed video games and the media for the tragedy. At a press conference, LaPierre said “vicious, violent games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, and Splatterhouse” led to real-world violence.

On the one-month anniversary of the school shooting, the NRA has released its own iPhone and iPad app, “NRA: Practice Range.” The iTunes rating system suggests that it’s appropriate for children as young as 4-years-old to play.

The free app claims to instill “safe and responsible ownership through fun challenges and realistic simulations.” It dispenses information about gun safety before users can take aim and fire. It costs 99 cents to upgrade a firearm from a free M9 to a Beretta, a Browning, or a Colt.

]]>0National Rifle Association releases free shooting gameRon Conway urges support for tech-backed nonprofit Sandy Hook Promisehttp://venturebeat.com/2013/01/14/conway-sandy-hook/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/14/conway-sandy-hook/#commentsMon, 14 Jan 2013 21:25:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=604195Conway urges the tech community to support a nonprofit founded by the community of Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary.
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On the one-month anniversary of the tragedy, we received an email from storied angel investor Ron Conway urging support for a new nonprofit agency, the “Sandy Hook Promise.”

Conway asked that recipients support the agency founded by the community of Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults died in a shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary. Specifically, Conway aims to rally the tech community to achieve the campaign’s objectives, formed as “a spontaneous grassroots reaction among tech leaders.”

For now, the group’s web page says that the purpose is to support the families of the victims and to “prevent tragedies like this from happening again.” Conway also revealed he’s forming a committee to discuss gun safety through technology.

In the email, he writes: “The goal of the campaign is to bring millions of Americans together to support congressional action to reduce gun violence, including the passage of common sense gun laws to eliminate background check loopholes, ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, and make gun trafficking a federal crime.”

Already, Conway has amassed over 200,000 signatures for a recently launched Facebook page to crack down on gun violence. Britney Spears, Ryan Seacrest, Jack Dorsey, and Marc Benioff are among the group’s supporters. The campaign is continuing to amass signatures on the nonprofit’s website, www.SandyHookPromise.org.

A week after the shooting, thousands of websites went dark to pay their respects to the victims. Today, Conway asks entrepreneurs and web developers to include a badge (featured above) as a show of support.

Aside from investing in hot startups, Conway heads up a nonprofit, “Sf.citi,” which functions at a technology-focused chamber of commerce. The group fields ideas for how to use the latest tech innovation to improve the local transportation system, parking, public safety and more.